


Happy Birthday, a fic for 4/13

by childishPoultrylord



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:29:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishPoultrylord/pseuds/childishPoultrylord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you forget what day it is, but then sometimes there's something there to remind you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, a fic for 4/13

The shattering of the windowpane in Dave's living room is what woke him up. It was still night time, and the rain had died down from earlier. He could hear the gentle brush of wind against the side of his house. He could hear nothing else.

His glasses were already on as he got up from the bed and moved to the door. He didn't even register the movements of putting them on, anymore. He opened his eyes, sunglasses happened. He put his ear to the door to listen. Still nothing. A burglar who smashed through a window would probably making a lot more noise than no noise at all. Unless he smashed the window ironically, so as to make it seem more like he was a bumbling asswagon instead of a silver-slick theftmachine. Dave could appreciate that. He grabbed one of the hundreds of shitty swords lining the walls of his apartment and opened the door, being as nonchalant as he could. Gotta be cool, Dave.

No one in the hallway.

He peeked out the doorway, listening to the quiet of the apartment. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Just the gentle blowing of the wind. There were no doors mysteriously opened that would not otherwise be left open in a less-than-mysterious manner. There was nothing.

It was quiet.

As the cliche goes, and Dave did so love cliches, _too_ quiet.

But Dave knew better. There was no one in the apartment. It was just him. Alone. He left his room to inspect the damage to the window. He could feel the cool breeze of the night-time storm tickle his bare feet.

The window was smashed in, but everything else was relatively in order, shitty Ikea living room set and all. He set the sword down on the coffee table and slumped onto the couch that creaked under his weight. He laid his head back and exhaled the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He lifted his head up, and across from him, above the TV, was his comically over-sized wall calendar, complete with illustrations from his mildly successful webcomic, Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. His eyes were drawn to a red circle on the right edge of the calendar.

"Damn," he said as he got up, hurrying himself over to the fridge. There was a cupcake in there that he'd been saving. He began pulling open drawers and cupboards, looking for the shitty dollar-store candles he knew he had stashed somewhere. He found them tucked behind a replica of Connor Macleod's sword from the Highlander movies. Dumping the pack out into his hand, he stuffed as many candles as he could into the cupcake as possible. He cranked the knob of the stove to get it to ignite, and lit the candles off the blue methane flames. He produced a party hat from the same cupboard containing the Highlander sword replica, and a couple of shitty noisemakers. He walked over to the broken window, and held the cupcake up so that the candles flickered in the wind. He blew on the noisemaker, the annoying whistling sound piercing the quiet as the paper streamer unrolled.

Nothing happened.

Dave stood there for a few minutes. He felt a few droplets of rain spatter his face.

"Fine, fucking fine, I'll do it," Dave said as he spat out the noisemaker, rushing through a heavily modified version of the Happy Birthday song. "Happy Birthday to you, you asshole in blue, I wish you a happy birthday, and a great big fuck you." Dave held the cupcake a little higher, the cheap wax already beginning to spill over the cupcake's edge and onto his fingers. "Okay, you fucking happy now?"

The wind picked up, and the flames flickered and danced, and finally went out. Rain still pelted Dave's face. Nothing else happened.

Dave stormed over to the trashcan, dunking the cupcake, and flopped himself onto the couch. Somehow raindrops were still hitting him, even though the wind had calmed back down.

That's when Dave realized that it wasn't rain on his face, but tears. 

"God damn it," he whispered, scrubbing at his face to wipe the tears away. He sat there for a minute, pretending he wasn't crying.

"Happy birthday, John." He said to the empty livingroom.

"Happy fucking birthday."


End file.
